Part 2 of 2
The letter, containing the account of the capture of Salsette, and the negotiation with Ragoba, written by the Bombay Presidency to the supreme Council, on the 31st of December, was not received at Calcutta till the beginning of March. Before that time, however, intelligence from various quarters had reached them of the fate of Salsette; and they had written letters to Bombay, reprehending the Council, in severe terms, for delaying to send more complete information. Vested with a control over the other presidencies, not well defined, and, by consequence, ill-understood, the Supreme Council were jealous of every appearance of an attempt to originate important measures independently of their authority. This jealousy, and a desire to carry their own importance high, distinguished the party in the new Council, which now, by force of numbers, engrossed the powers of the government. They looked, therefore, with a very evil eye upon the audacity which, in a subordinate Presidency, so near the time when the Supreme Council were to assume the reins of government, ventured upon so great a measure as the conquest of Salsette, without waiting to be authorized by their sanction, or deterred by their prohibition. The letter from Bombay was answered on the 8th of March, with a dry remark, that all observations on the capture of Salsette were rendered useless by the tardiness of the information: The Council, however, declared their express disapprobation of the connexion with Ragoba; and two days after the treaty with that chieftain was signed, commanded that all negotiation with him should be suspended, till further instructions were received. On the 31st of May, arrived from the President and Council of Bombay a letter dated the 31st of March, with information of the conclusion of the treaty with Ragoba, and the departure of the troops for his support. On this occasion the Governor-General took the lead in the condemnation of the President and Council of Bombay; denouncing their procedure as “unseasonable, impolitic, unjust, and unauthorized;” and he proposed, that they should be peremptorily enjoined to cancel the treaty, and to withdraw the troops immediately from assisting Ragoba, except in the three following cases: “1. That they should have obtained any decisive advantages over the enemy; 2. That they should be in such a situation as might render it dangerous to retreat; 3. That a negotiation should have taken place between Ragoba and his opponents.” The Governor-General afterwards professed that he had gone beyond his real sentiments in these terms of condemnation, in hopes to moderate by that means the violence of the opposite party. In this expectation, if ever formed, he found himself deceived. The majority passed two resolutions, which form as singular a combination as the history of practical politics presents. They voted the condemnation of the treaty with Ragoba, and the immediate recall of the troops, subject to no consideration whatever but that of their safety: And they voted that a negotiation should be immediately opened with the Mutseddies, to arrange a treaty of peace, and obtain confirmation of Salsette and Bassein. They condemned the President and Council of Bombay, for taking part in the quarrels of the Mahrattas, and declaring for one party in opposition to another: They themselves performed what they themselves condemned, and were most effectually and irresistibly declaring in favour of the ministers against Ragoba. Other negotiators proceed to discussion with as fair a colour on their pretensions as they can, and as much power in their hands as they are able to retain; not that honourable men will aim at advantages which are unreasonable and unjust; but that they may be secure from the necessity of submitting to any thing which is unreasonable and unjust. The English rulers began with declaring themselves to be in the wrong, and stripping their hands of power; as preliminaries to a negotiation with a people, uniformly insolent and rapacious in proportion to their strength; who never heard the proposal of a concession but as an avowal of weakness; and could not conceive that any government ever yielded any thing which it was able to retain. Of all the courses which it was in the power of the Supreme Council to pursue, they made choice of that which was decidedly the worst. By fulfilling the treaty with Ragoba, they would have easily established his authority, and obtained the important concessions to which he had agreed: If they resolved, as they did, to countenance the ministers, they might, at any rate, have made their terms, before they exalted their pretensions by the annihilation of the power which would have made them compliant: And if they had inclined to act the part of really useful and pacific neighbours, they might have arbitrated between the parties with decisive and happy effect.
The Supreme Council resolved to treat with the ministers at Poona by an agent of their own, without the intervention of the Presidency of Bombay, in whose department the Mahratta country was situated, and who were best acquainted with the character and circumstances of the people.370 Colonel Upton, who was selected for the service, departed on the 17th of July, with letters to Siccaram Baboo, as head of the ministerial party; and with instructions to insist upon Salsette and Bassein, as indispensable conditions in the agreement which was proposed. It is worthy of remark, that he was furnished also with a letter to Ragoba, which was to be presented to that Prince, in case of his success; and then to form an introduction to a negotiation.
A letter from the Governor and Council of Bombay, dated the 22d of August, reached the Supreme Council in the beginning of October. These rulers complained severely of the disgrace which was thrown upon their Presidency, by compelling them to violate a solemn treaty, and depriving them of the power of negotiating with the neighbouring states. Such a loss of dignity in a great branch of the government could not fail, they said, to affect injuriously the interests of the Company. They denied, that they had been guilty of any wilful disrespect to the Supreme Council. The nature of the circumstances required that they should act without delay; the possession of Salsette and Bassein, required that they should declare in favour of one of the Mahratta parties; and many considerations induced them to give the preference to Ragoba. They pointed out the unhappy effects, even upon the negotiation with the ministers, which would result from the recall of the troops, and the ruin of Ragoba; and stated that they had deputed to Calcutta a member of their board, upon whose representations they still hoped, that their treaty would be executed, and that the great advantages of the connexion with Ragoba would not be thrown away. Their deputy displayed both zeal and ability, in his endeavours to make an impression upon the Council. But the majority adhered to their first determinations. Colonel Upton was, however, instructed to make some stipulations in favour of Ragoba; and the Presidency at Bombay was authorized to afford a sanctuary, in case of personal danger, to himself, his family and attendants. That Presidency was also directed, notwithstanding the breach of the treaty with Ragoba, to retain possession of the districts which had been yielded by Futty Sing, till the conclusion of a definitive treaty of peace.
The Council had for some time been waiting with impatience for the account of the arrival of their negotiator at Poona. In the beginning of January, 1776, they received letters from the ministers, which contained a commentary on the policy of annihilating Ragoba, at the moment of commencing a negotiation with his enemies. These letters displayed a high tone of complaint, and even of menace. They expressed a disinclination, on the part of the ministers, to submit their pretensions to discussion; and threatened a renewal of hostility, unless the places which had been taken were immediately restored.
Letters, dated the 5th of January, received from Colonel Upton on the 12th of February, announced his arrival at Poona, and a favourable reception. Other letters received on the 6th of March, and dated on the 2d of February, brought information of difficulties impeding the negotiation. The ministers imagine, says Colonel Upton, “that I must treat with them at any rate:—And that I have vastly exceeded my instructions, by asking a surrender of Salsette and Bassein.” “They ask me,” says he, “a thousand times, Why we make such professions of honour? How disprove the war entered into by the Bombay government; when we are so desirous of availing ourselves of the advantages of it?” Despairing of compliance with all his demands, the Colonel proposed to relax in the affair of Bassein, and to ask for something else in its stead.371
On the 7th of March, a letter dated the 7th of February arrived; and announced that the negotiation was broken off. The ministers insisted upon an immediate renunciation of Salsette, and would not allow so much as time for consulting the government. “In five or six days more,” says the Colonel, “I am to leave Poona Dhur, and they will then fix the time for the expiration of the cessation of arms. I told them, I expected time to advise all our settlements before the renewal of the war; but I suspect them of taking every advantage.” He added, which confirmed the representations made in defence of the connexion with Ragoba, “If three or four companies of Europeans, a small detachment from the corps of artillery, and two or three battalions of Sepoys, were embarked from Bengal to join the army from Bombay, we might soon command peace on our own terms. For the chiefs of this country are quite at a loss which side to take; and are waiting to see what the English do.”372
Upon this intelligence the Council hastened to prepare for war on the largest scale. They resolved, “to support the cause of Ragoba with the utmost vigour; and with a general exertion of the whole power of the English arms in India; to act in all quarters at once; and, by the decision and rapidity of their proceedings, to bring the war, if possible, to a speedy conclusion:” And all this, (namely, a war with the ministers, and alliance with Ragoba, the very measures for which they condemned the Presidency at Bombay), rather than restore Salsette, the capture of which, and the alliance for its support, they had denounced as both impolitic and unjust!
At the conclusion, however, of the month, another letter from Colonel Upton was received. This letter brought intelligence of the final compliance of the ministers on the subject of Salsette. Warlike preparations were then suspended, and a treaty was at last arranged. The English renounced Bassein, and agreed to renounce the cessions in Guzerat, provided it appeared, as the ministers maintained, that Futty Sing was not entitled to make them. The Mahrattas yielded Salsette, and the small adjacent islands, of 3,500,000 rupees revenue; the Mahratta chout, or share of the revenues of Broach, amounting to an equal sum; and a country of three lacs in the neighbourhood of Broach. The members of the Bombay government compared these with the terms which they had obtained from Ragoba; and proclaimed their disapprobation. The concession with respect to Broach, they said, was pretended and delusive, as the Mahrattas had no right to any share of its revenues: The ceded territory, not being jaghire, or free from Mahratta burthens, would be a source of continual disturbance: The relinquishment of the cessions in Guzerat was weakly made upon an unfounded pretence, which actually gave the Guicawars an interest to disclaim the right in dispute: And, upon the whole, the treaty was highly injurious to the reputation, honour, and interests of the Company. The majority in the Supreme Council grounded the defence of their measures upon the utility of peace; and the frequent commands of the Directors to abstain from aggressive war.373
It had been stipulated that Ragoba should disband his army within one month; receive an establishment of 1,000 horse, to be paid and relieved at the pleasure of government, and, of course, to act as his gaolers and guards; enjoy a pension of three lacs of rupees per annum, and reside at an appointed place of abode. With these terms, which he represented as placing him in the hands of his enemies, Ragoba declared his resolution not to comply; and having requested an asylum in one of the Company’s settlements, he was promised, under the licence formerly granted, a sanctuary for himself and his attendants, by the Governor and Council of Bombay. The Mutseddies complained of this act of protection to Ragoba; and alarmed the ruling party in the Supreme Council with menaces that they would renounce the treaty, and betake themselves to war. After violent debates in the Supreme Council, and great diversity of opinion, it was decided by the majority, to condemn the offer made by the President and Council of Bombay of their protection to Ragoba; and to forbid them to receive that chieftain at any of the settlements within the limits of their government. The apprehensions of his enemies were soon after allayed by the defection of his troops. And he retired to Surat with only 200 attendants.
After considerable delay, and a variety of mutual complaints on the part of the Bombay Presidency and the ministers at Poona, the treaty was signed, and transmitted by Colonel Upton to Calcutta, on the 3d of June, 1776. It is peculiarly worthy of notice and remembrance, that intelligence of the conclusion of this affair had not reached the Supreme Council, when letters arrived from the Court of Directors applauding the treaty which the Presidency of Bombay had formed with Ragoba; and commanding their government of Bengal to co-operate for its fulfilment and confirmation. “We approve,” they say, “under every circumstance, of the keeping of all the territories and possessions ceded to the Company by the treaty concluded with Ragoba; and direct that you forthwith adopt such measures as may be necessary for their preservation and defence.”374
During these transactions, the attention of the Supreme Council was not attracted by any great event, towards the powers on the north-western frontier of the Company’s empire. In Oude, Asoff ul Dowla, the New Nabob, had entered upon his government with an exhausted treasury; he was oppressed by the debts due to the Company, and by their importunate demands of payment; his troops were mutinous for want of pay; his inability to maintain them had produced a reduction of his army; he had dismissed the ministers of his father, and surrounded himself with favourites; distraction prevailed in his family and his government; his character was vicious and weak; and every commotion on his frontier alarmed the Supreme Council for the safety of his dominions. Flying parties of the Mahrattas harrassed the neighbouring countries; and reports of more formidable enterprises excited the apprehensions of both the Nabob and his English friends. During the summer of 1776 it was rumoured, that a league had been formed by the Emperor, the Mahrattas, the Seiks, and the Rohillas, to invade the dominions of Asoff ul Dowla. And the Governor General urged the expediency of forming an alliance with Nujeef Khan, to lessen the danger of such an association. After the expedition against Zabita Khan, and the admission of the Mahrattas into Delhi, this leader, through the artifice of a favourite, had fallen into disgrace with his master, and been reduced to the brink of ruin. The necessity of the Emperor’s affairs, and even the recommendation of Sujah Dowla and the English, again restored him to favour; and, in 1773, he engaged in a war with the Jaats, under an understanding that he should retain one half of the territory he should conquer, and resign the other to the Emperor. He had prevailed over the Jaats in the field, and recovered the fort and city of Agra, at the time when the agreement was made, between the Emperor and Vizir, to join in the war against the Rohillas. After his return from Rohilcund, he prosecuted his war with the Jaats; and having driven them, though he was exceedingly distressed for pecuniary means, from the open country, he was besieging the strong fortress of Deig; which, after an obstinate resistance, yielded to his arms; at the time when the situation of the neighbouring powers recommended a connexion with him to the English rulers. The discharge, however, of Sumroo, and a few Frenchmen, from his service, was made an indispensable preliminary; and as he alleged the danger at that moment of sending them to increase the power of his enemies, though he professed the strongest desire to comply with the wishes of the Company, the alliance was for the present obstructed and postponed. The anxiety of Asoff ul Dowla to receive from the Emperor, what still, it seems, was a source of illustration and an object of ambition; the office, though now only nominal, of Vizir; was kept on the rack by various interruptions, by competitors strongly supported, particularly the Nizam, and by the disinclination of the imperial mind. The pescush, however, or appropriate offering, with five thousand men and some artillery, which the Nabob sent to attend the Emperor, arrived at a critical moment, when Zabita Khan had not only evaded payment of the revenue for the country which he possessed, but had taken up arms to support his disobedience; had gained a victory over the Emperor’s forces; and was upon the point of becoming master of Delhi, and of the fate of its lord. The troops of Asoff ad Dowla appeared in time to save this catastrophe; and an imperial representative, in requital of this service, was soon after dispatched to invest the Nabob with the Kelât. By interference, however, of the commander of the Nabob’s detachment, whom Zabita Khan had duly bribed, the helpless Emperor was obliged to confirm that disobedient chief in the territory which he held, and even to remit those arrears of tribute which formed the subject of dispute.375
During the period of those transactions, affairs of a different description had deeply engaged the attention of the Supreme Council, and excited the most violent dissensions. So early as the month of December, 1774, a petition had been presented by the Ranee of Burdwan. This was the title of the widow of Tillook Chund, lately deceased, who, under the title of Rajah, had enjoyed the Zemindary of the district, and whose ancestors, as the representatives of its ancient Rajahs, had enjoyed it in succession through the whole period of Mahomedan sway. Her son, a minor of only nine years of age, had been nominated to the office upon the death of his father; and a considerable share of the power had at first passed into her hands. Afterwards, by the authority of the English government, the young Rajah was withdrawn from the guardianship of the Ranee, and the affairs of the Zemindary were entrusted to administrators of English appointment. She now complained of corrupt administration on the part of the Duan, or chief agent of the Zemindary, and accused the English Resident of supporting him in his iniquity, for the sake of the bribes with which the Duan took care to engage him. The more numerous party in the Council decreed that the Duan should be compelled to render an account of his administration; that the Ranee, agreeably to her petition, should be allowed to repair to Calcutta with her son; and as no inquiry into the conduct of the Duan could be successfully performed, while he retained power over the persons and papers of his office, that a temporary substitute should occupy his place. These resolutions the Governor-General, accompanied by Mr. Barwell, opposed. The Governor-General said, that the presence of the Ranee at Calcutta, whom he described as a troublesome, violent woman, would be not only unnecessary, but inconvenient; that the removal of the Duan from his office before any guilt was proved, would be a violation of justice;376 and the appointment to that office of persons whose qualifications had not been tried, a total departure from policy and prudence. On the 6th of January, 1775, a letter was received from the Resident, against whom the accusations of the Ranee were directed. It was drawn up in a very lofty style; the writer celebrated his own virtues; ascribed a bad character to the Ranee; and expressed the highest indignation, that she had the audacity to prefer an accusation against him. He professed his readiness to submit his conduct to examination; but required, that security should first be demanded of the Ranee to pay an equivalent penalty, in case she failed in the proof of her charges. The pretext for this condition was, its alleged conformity to the laws of the country. To stifle complaint, and to screen misrule, was its natural effect; and upon this consideration the majority of the Council refused to impose it. A variety of accounts were presented to the Board, in which were entered several sums of considerable amount, as paid by the Duan to the servants of the Company and their dependants, not only upon the appointment of the young Rajah, but also upon that of his Duan. Not less than 3,20,975 rupees were charged to the account of the Resident, his banyan, and cash-keeper. Mr. Hastings himself was accused of receiving 15,000 rupees, and his banyan, or native secretary, 4,500; and the whole of the sums represented as thus distributed among the Company’s servants, since the death of the deceased Rajah, amounted to 9,36,497 rupees. The authenticity of these accounts was called in question by the parties whom they affected; and every thing is doubtful which rests upon the authority of Indian witnesses, under strong temptations to depart from truth. Enough does not appear to condemn any individual. Enough appears to render it not doubtful that money was upon this occasion received by the Company’s servants; and enough does not appear to exculpate any individual against whom the charge was advanced. Mr. Hastings now lost his tone of calmness and forbearance. He accused the party in the council, by whom he was opposed, of a design to supersede him in his authority, and to drive him from his office. He pronounced them to be his accusers, parties to the cause against him; and therefore disqualified to sit as judges upon his conduct. He declared that he would not summon or hold councils for “a triumph over himself.” He proposed that whatever inquisition they might choose to make into his conduct, they should make it in a committee; where his absence would save his station and character from degradation and insult; and he declared it to be his resolution to dissolve the council, as often as they should enter upon any criminating inquiry against himself. An occasion soon presented itself for putting his threat in execution. The resolution to compliment the Ranee with the usual insignia of office, he pronounced an insult to himself; declared the Council dissolved, and quitted the chair. The majority resolved that a vote of adjournment could, as all other votes, be passed only by a plurality of the voices present; that if this was not the law, the Governor-General was despotic; and that the right which he claimed was a right of impunity. They voted the first member of the Council into the chair, and continued their proceedings.
On the 30th of March, 1775, another accusation occupied the attention of the Board. In a representation received from one of the natives, it was set fourth, that the Phouzdar of Hoogly was paid by the Company 72,000 rupees as the annual salary of his office; that out of this sum, however, he paid annually to Mr. Hastings 36,000 rupees, together with 4,000 to Mr. Hastings’ native secretary, reserving only 32,000 rupees to himself; and that the author of this representation would undertake the duties of the office for this reduced allowance, producing an annual saving to the Company of 40,000 rupees, now corruptly received by Mr. Hastings and his banyan. The first debate which rose upon this information regarded the competence of the board to entertain such complaints. Mr. Hastings’ party, consisting of Mr. Barwell and himself, opposed the reception of any accusations against any individual of the board; and referred to the courts of justice. The major party deemed it an important article of the duty of the Supreme Council to control abuses, and not least in the hands of those who had the greatest power to commit them. It is no sufficient check, upon those who are entrusted with power, to be amenable for legal crimes in a court of justice. The analogies of the most vulgar trust shed light upon the highest. Who would endure a servant, pretending that his conduct ought not to be challenged but in a court of justice; his trust modified, or withdrawn, till after the judicial proof of a legal crime? When this plea was over-ruled, and the council were about to enter upon the investigation, Mr. Hastings declared that “he would not sit to be confronted with such accusers, nor to suffer a judicial inquiry into this conduct, at the board of which he is President.” As formerly, he pronounced the Council dissolved; and the majority continued their proceedings in his absence. Two letters of the Phouzdar in question were produced in evidence; and two witnesses were examined. The Phouzdar himself was summoned to answer. At first he alleged excuses for delay. When he did appear, he declined examination upon oath; on the pretence that to persons of his rank it was a degradation to confirm their testimony by that religious ceremony. In this scrupulosity, he was strongly supported by Mr. Hastings; but the majority construed it into a contempt of the Board; and dismissed the Phouzdar from his office, which they conferred, not upon the accusing petitioner, but another individual, at one half of the preceding salary, 36,000 rupees. The majority of the Council esteemed the evidence of the charge complete. The party of the Governor-General, representing the testimony of the natives of India when they have any motive to falsify, as little worthy of trust, and the known disposition of the leading party in the Council as holding forth inducement to accuse, affirmed that the evidence had no title to regard. The eagerness of the Governor-General to stifle, and his exertions to obstruct inquiry, on all occasions where his conduct came under complaint, constituted in itself an article of proof, which added materially to the weight of whatever came against him from any other source.
Another ground of charge presented itself in the following manner. On the 2d of May, 1775, Mr. Grant, accountant to the provincial council of Moorshedabad, produced to the board a set of accounts, relating to the affairs of the Nabob; and stated that he had received them from a native, now in his own service, who had till lately been a clerk in the treasury office of the Nabob. From these accounts it appeared that Munny Begum, since her appointment to the superintendence of the Nabob’s person and affairs, had received 9,67,693 rupees, over and above what she appeared to have disbursed or had accounted for. Upon examination of Mr. Grant, and of the clerk from whom the accounts were received, the majority of the council were induced to regard them as authentic. Among other circumstances it was stated by the clerk, that the head eunuch of the Begum, the person who stood highest in her confidence, had endeavoured, upon hearing of such accounts in the hands of the clerk, to prevail upon him, by the prospect of rewards and advantages, to restore the papers, and return to the service of the Begum; and Mr. Grant was ready to state upon his oath that similar attempts had been made upon himself. The party opposed to the Governor-General thought the circumstances sufficiently strong to render inquiry necessary, and to authorise the steps which inquiry demanded. They proposed, that a servant of the Company should immediately be sent to Moorshedabad, invested with a proper commission and powers; and that the Begum, for the investigation of whose conduct no satisfactory evidence could be procured, while she retained authority over the officers and servants of the Nabob, should be divested of her power. The Governor-General, on the other hand, questioned the authority of the papers, resisted the proposal to inquire into the accounts of the Begum, and protested against removing her from her office, while no proof of her misconduct was adduced.377 By decision however of the majority, Mr. Goring was dispatched for the investigation; the power of the Begum was withdrawn; and Rajah Gourdass, the son of Nuncomar, Duan, or principal Minister of the Begum, received the temporary charge of the Nabob’s affairs. Inquiry seemed to establish the authenticity of the papers. The Begum, when pressed to account for the balance with which she was charged, stated, among other circumstances, that 1,50,000 rupees had been given to Mr. Hastings, under the name of entertainment money, when he went to Moorshedabad in 1772, and placed her at the head of the Nabob’s establishment. She also represented that on the same occasion 1,50,000 rupees had been given by her as a present to Mr. Middleton. Of the sum thus delivered to Mr. Middleton (for the receipt of it was never denied), no account was ever rendered, and no defence was ever set up. Mr. Hastings justified the receipt of what was bestowed upon himself, on the several pleas, that the act of parliament which prohibited presents was not then passed, that such allowances were the common custom of the country, that a Nabob of Bengal received on the same account 1000 rupees a day as often as he visited the Governor in Calcutta, that he added nothing to his fortune by this allowance, and must have charged to the company a sum as large, if this had not been received.378 Upon part of this it is necessary to remark, that custom, the custom of a country, where almost every thing was corrupt, affords but a sorry defence; that if a visit to the Nabob was a thing of so much expense it ought not to have been made without an adequate cause; that no adequate cause, if the receipt of the present be excluded, can any where be found; that for the necessity of a great expense on such a visit, or indeed of any extraordinary expense at all, we have barely the assertion of the Governor-General, which being the assertion of a party making out a case in his own defence, and an assertion opposed to probability, possesses but little of the force of proof. Besides, the amount is enormous; 2000 rupees per day; 7,30,000 rupees, or 73,000l. per annum. What should have made living at Moorshedabad cost the Governor-General at the rate of 73,000l. per annum? And why should the Nabob, whose allowance was understood to be cut down to the lowest point, have been oppressed by so enormous a burden? Another consideration of importance is, that when Mr. Hastings received the sum of one lac and a half of rupees for entertainment money, he at the same time charged to the Company a large sum, 30,000 rupees and upwards, as travelling charges, and a great additional amount for his colleagues and attendants.379 The complaints of severe usage to the Begum, advanced both by herself and by Hastings, appear to have had no other foundation than the loss of her office; an office which the majority considered her sex as disqualifying her to fill; and to which they treated her appointment as one of the errors or crimes of the preceding administration.
Of the different charges, however, brought against the Governor-General, those which were produced by the Rajah Nuncomar were attended with the most remarkable circumstances. From this personage, whom we have seen Phouzdar of Hoogly, minister of the Nabob Jaffier Khan, the agent of Mr. Hastings in the prosecution of Mahomed Reza Khan, and whose son was appointed Duan of the household to the Nabob, which son it was regulated and ordained that he should guide, a paper was delivered on the 11th of March, which, besides accusing the Governor-General of overlooking the proof of vast embezzlements committed by Mahomed Reza Khan and Shitabroy, and of acquitting them in consideration of large sums of money by which he was bribed, exhibited the particulars of a sum amounting to 3,54,105 rupees, which, it affirmed, the Governor-General accepted, for the appointment of Munny Begum, and Goordass, to their respective dignities and powers. In prosecution of the opinion of the majority that it was the duty of the Supreme Council to inquire into the charges which were brought against the members of the government, and to control the conduct even of the highest officers of state, it was on the 13th proposed, that Nuncomar should be summoned to appear before them, and called upon to produce the grounds of his accusation. Mr. Hastings, instead of choosing to confront his accuser, and to avail himself of the advantage of innocence, in hearing and challenging the pretences of a false accusation, resisted inquiry. “Before the question is put,” says his Minute, “I declare that I will not suffer Nuncomar to appear before the Board as my accuser. I know what belongs to the dignity and character of the first member of this administration. I will not sit at this Board in the character of a criminal. Nor do I acknowledge the members of this Board to be my judges. I am reduced on this occasion to make the declaration that I regard General Clavering, Colonel Monson, and Mr. Francis, as my accusers.” The Governor-General, with Mr. Barwell, again recommended prosecution at law, not inquiry before the Council, as the mode of investigating his conduct. Again he pronounced the Council dissolved, and, together with Mr. Barwell, quitted the Board. Again the majority voted this form of dissolution void, and continued the inquiry. Nuncomar made positive declaration as to the sums which he himself had paid to the Governor; gave in the names of several persons who were privy to the transactions; and presented a letter, in purport from Munny Begum to himself, of which the seal, upon comparison, by the Persian translator and his moonshee, was declared to be authentic; and in which a gift was stated of two lacs to the Governor from himself. Upon this evidence the Governor was called upon to refund to the Company the money which he had thus illegally received. But he refused to acknowledge the majority as a council, and returned no answer.
Nothing surely can be more inadmissible than the pretences of the Governor-General for stifling inquiry. What he alleged was, the dignity of the accused, and the baseness of the accuser. If dignity in the accused be a sufficient objection to inquiry, the responsibility of the leading members of every government is immediately destroyed; all limitation of their power is ended; and all restraint upon misconduct is renounced. If the character of the accuser is bad, so much the greater is the advantage of the accused; because so much the more easy it is to counterbalance the evidence of his testimony. So great may be the improbability of a charge, and so little the value of an accuser’s testimony, that the first may outweigh the latter, and preclude the propriety of any further research. But where the case is in any degree different from this, the character of the informer is not a sufficient objection to inquiry. It is often from men of the worst character that the most important intelligence is most likely to be received; and it is only necessary in receiving it to make those abatements of belief which the character of the informant may appear to require. Perpetual reference to the courts of law, as the only place where inquiry into the conduct of an officer of government could fitly be made, merits the highest condemnation; because the conduct of a member of government may be evil to almost any degree, may involve his country in ruin, and yet may be incapable of being touched by courts of law, constituted and conducted as those of England. It is another species of superintendance and control which must ensure good conduct in those who are vested with great public trusts. In disclaiming the majority for his judges, the Governor availed himself of an ambiguity in the word. They did not undertake the office of judgment. They only held it their duty to inquire, for the benefit of those who might afterwards judge.
In this case, the Governor-General was not satisfied with crying out against inquiry. He took the extraordinary resolution of prosecuting with all the weight of his authority the man by whom he was accused. An indictment, at the instance of the Governor-General, of Mr. Barwell, of Mr. Vansittart, of Mr. Hastings’ Banyan, and of the Roy Royan or head native agent of finance, was preferred against Nuncomar, together with Messrs. Joseph and Francis Fowke, for a conspiracy to force a man named Commaul ad dien Khan, to write a petition against the parties to the prosecution. After an examination before the judges, Mr. Francis Fowke was discharged; and Mr. Barwell, the Roy Royan, and the Governor’s Banyan, withdrew their names from the prosecution. The Governor and Mr. Vansittart persevered; and Nuncomar and Mr. Joseph Fowke were held to bail at their instance. “The truth is, as we,” says the minute of Clavering, Monson, and Francis, on the 16th of May, “have reason to believe, that there never existed such a paper as has been sworn to; and that every particular said to be contained in it is an imposition invented by Commaul ad Dien.” A few days after this suspicious, but ineffectual proceeding, a new prosecution was instituted against Nuncomar. At the suit of a native, he was taken up on a charge of forgery, and committed to the common gaol. He was tried before the Supreme Court, by a jury of Englishmen, convicted, and hanged. No transaction perhaps of this whole administration more deeply tainted the reputation of Hastings than the tragedy of Nuncomar. At the moment when he stood forth as the accuser of the Governor-General, he was charged with a crime, alledged to have been committed five years before; tried, and executed; a proceeding which could not fail to generate the suspicion of guilt, and of an inability to encounter the weight of his testimony, in the man whose power to have prevented, or to have stopped (if he did not cause) the prosecution, it is not easy to deny. As Hastings, aware of the sinister interpretations to which the destruction of an accuser, in circumstances so extraordinary, would assuredly expose him, chose rather to sustain the weight of those suspicions, than to meet the charges by preventing or suspending the fate of the accuser; it is a fair inference, though mere resentment and spite might hurry some men to as great an indiscretion, that from the accusations he dreaded something worse than those suspicions. Mr. Francis, in his examination before the House of Commons, on the 16th of April, 1788, declared that the effect of this transaction upon the inquiries carried on by the Board into the accusations against the Governor, was, “to defeat them; that it impressed a general terror on the natives with respect to preferring accusations against men in great power; and that he and his coadjutors were unwilling to expose them to what appeared to him and these coadjutors, as well as themselves, a manifest danger.”
The severest censures were very generally passed upon this trial and execution; and it was afterwards exhibited as matter of impeachment against both Mr. Hastings, and the Judge who presided in the tribunal. The crime for which Nuncomar was made to suffer, was not a capital offence, by the laws of Hindustan, either Moslem or Hindu; and it was represented as a procedure full of cruelty and injustice, to render a people amenable to the most grievous severities of a law with which they were unacquainted, and from which, by their habits and associations, their minds were totally estranged. It was affirmed; That this atrocious condemnation and execution were upon an ex post facto law, as the statute which created the Supreme Court and its powers was not published till 1774, and the date of the supposed forgery was in 1770: That the law which rendered forgery capital did not extend to India, as no English statute included the colonies, unless where it was expressly stated in the law: That Nuncomar, as a native Indian, for a crime committed against another Indian, not an Englishman, or even a European, was amenable to the native, not the English tribunals: That the evidence adduced was not sufficient to warrant condemnation: And that although the situation in which the prisoner was placed with regard to a man of so much power as the Governor-General should have suggested to the Judge peculiar circumspection and tenderness, there was every appearance of precipitation, and of a predetermination to find him guilty, and to cut him off. In the defence which was set up by Sir Elijah Impey, the Chief Judge, in his answer at the bar of the House of Commons on the 12th of December, 1787, he admitted that a native inhabitant of the provinces at large was not amenable to the English laws, or to the English tribunals: and it was not as such, he affirmed, that Nuncomar was tried. But he maintained that a native inhabitant of the English town of Calcutta, which was English property, which had long been governed by Englishmen, and English laws, was amenable to the English tribunals, and justly, because he made it his voluntary choice to live under their protection; and that it was in this capacity, namely that of an inhabitant of Calcutta, that Nuncomar suffered the penalties of the English laws. If the competency of the jurisdiction was admitted, the question of evidence, where evidence was complicated and contradictory, could not admit of any very clear and certain decision; and the Judge opposed the affirmation of its insufficiency by that of the contrary. He denied the doctrine that an English penal statute extended to the colonies, only when that extension was expressed. The allegation of precipitation and unfairness, still further of corruption, in the treatment of the accused, he not only denied with strong expressions of abhorrence, but by a specification of circumstances endeavoured to disprove. It was, however, affirmed, that Nuncomar was not an inhabitant of Calcutta at the time when the offence was said to have been committed; but a prisoner brought and detained there by constraint. The Chief Justice, on the other hand, maintained that not only was no evidence to this fact exhibited on the trial, but evidence to the contrary, and that not opposed. It does indeed appear that an omission, contrary to the intent of the framers, in the Charter of Justice granted the Company in 1753, had afforded a pretext for that extension of jurisdiction over the inhabitants of Calcutta, under which Impey sheltered himself. In establishing the civil court for the administration of the English laws, this charter expressly excepted “such suits as shall be between Indian natives, which shall be determined among themselves, unless both parties consent.” In establishing the penal court, the reservation of the natives, having once been expressed, was not repeated; and of this opening the servants of the Company had availed themselves, whenever they chose, to extend over the natives the penalties of English law. That the intention of the charter was contrary, appeared by its sanctioning a separate court, called the Phousdary, for the trial of all offences of the native inhabitants; a court which, under the intention of rendering natives as well as English amenable to the English criminal laws, would have been totally without a purpose.380 Of the evidence it may fairly be observed, that though the forgery was completely proved by the oaths of the witnesses to the prosecution, it was as completely disproved by the oaths of the witnesses to the defence; that there was no such difference in the character of the parties or their witnesses as to throw the balance greatly to either of the sides; and that the preponderance, if any, was too weak, to support an act of so much importance and delicacy, as the condemnation of Nuncomar. Even after the judgment, the case was not without a remedy; the execution might have been staid till the pleasure of the King was known, and a pardon might have been obtained. This too the Court absolutely refused; and proceeded with unrelenting determination to the execution of Nuncomar; who, on the 5th of August, with a tranquillity and firmness that never were surpassed, submitted to his fate, not only amid the tears and lamentations, but the cries and shrieks of an extraordinary assemblage of his countrymen.
There was, perhaps, enough to save the authors of this transaction, on the rigid interpretation of naked law. But that all regard to decorum, to the character of the English government, to substantial justice, to the prevention of misrule, and the detection of ministerial crimes, was sacrificed to personal interests, and personal passions, the impartial inquirer cannot hesitate to pronounce.381
Among the regulations of the financial system, formed and adopted in 1772, under the authority of Mr. Hastings, the seventeenth article was expressed in the following words; “That no Peshcar, Banyan, or other servant of whatever denomination, of the collector, or relation or dependant of any such servant, be allowed to farm lands, nor directly or indirectly to hold a concern in any farm, nor to be security for any farmer; and if it shall appear, that the collector shall have countenanced, approved, or connived at a breach of this regulation, he shall stand ipso facto dismissed from his collectorship.” These regulations had the advantage of being accompanied with a running commentary, in a corresponding column of the very page which contained the text of the law; the commentary proceeding from the same authority as the law, and exhibiting the reasons on which it was founded. The commentary on the article in question, stated, that, “If the collector or any persons who partake of his authority, are permitted to be farmers of the country, no other persons will dare to be their competitors. Of course they will obtain the farms on their own terms. It is not fit that the servants of the Company should be dealers with their masters. The collectors are checks on the farmers. If they themselves turn farmers, what checks can be found for them? What security will the Company have for their property? Or where are the ryots to look for protection?”382 Notwithstanding this law, it appeared that Mr. Hastings’s own Banyan had, in the year 1773, possessed, or was concerned in the farm of no less than nineteen pergunnahs, or districts, in different parts of Bengal, the united rent-roll of which was 13,33,664 rupees; that in 1774, the rent-roll of the territory so farmed was 13,46,152 rupees; in 1775, 13,67,796 rupees; that in 1776, it was 13,88,346 rupees; and in 1777, the last year of the existing or quinquennial settlement, it was 14,11,885 rupees. It also appeared that, at the end of the second year, he was allowed to relinquish three of the farms, on which there was an increasing rent. This proceeding was severely condemned by the Directors; and Mr. Hastings himself, beyond affirming that he had no share in the profits, and that little or none were made, alleged but little in its defence.383
For the affairs of the Nabob, and that part of the business of government, still transacted in his name, a substitute to Munny Begum, and to the plan superseded by her removal, was urgently required. In their letter of the 3d of March, 1775, the Directors had declared Mahomed Reza Khan to be so honourably cleared of the suspicions and charges with which he had been clouded, and Nuncomar to be so disgraced by his attempts to destroy him, that they directed his son, who was no more than the tool of the father, to be removed from his office; and Mahomed Reza Khan to be appointed in his stead. It is remarkable, that the Directors were so ignorant of the government of India, which it belonged to them to conduct, that they mistook the name of the office of Gourdass, who was the agent for paying the Nabob’s servants, and the substitute for Munny Begum, when any of the affairs was to be transacted to which the fiction of the Nabob’s authority was still applied, for that of the officer who was no more than the head of the native clerks in the office of revenue at Calcutta. When they directed Gourdass to be replaced by Mahomed Reza, they distinguished him by the title of Roy Royan; and thence enlarged the ground of cavil and dispute between the contending parties in the Council. Clavering, Francis, and Monson, decided for uniting in the hands of Mahomed Reza Khan the functions which had been divided between Munny Begum and Rajah Gourdass; and as Rajah Gourdass, notwithstanding the prejudices against his father, was recommended by the Directors to some inferior office, the same party proposed to make him Roy Royan, and to remove Rajah Bullub, the son of Dooloob Ram, by whom that office had hitherto been held.
As the penal department of justice was ill administered in the present Fousdary courts (that branch of the late arrangements had totally failed); and as the superintendance of criminal justice, entrusted to the Governor-General, as head of the Nizamut Adaulut, or Supreme Penal Court of Calcutta, loaded him with a weight of business, and of responsibility, from which he sought to be relieved, the majority agreed to restore to Mahomed Reza Khan, the superintendence of penal justice, and of the native penal courts throughout the country; and for that purpose to remove the seat of the Nizamut Adaulut from Calcutta back to Moorshedabad. The Governor-General agreed that the orders of the Directors required the removal of Gourdass from the office which he held under Munny Begum, and the appointment to that office of Mahomed Reza Khan; but he dissented from all the other parts of the proposed arrangement; and treated the renewal of the title of Naib Subah, and the affectation of still recognizing the Nabob’s government, as idle grimace. “All the arts of policy cannot,” he said, “conceal the power by which these provinces are ruled, nor can all the arts of sophistry avail to transfer the responsibility to the Nabob; when it is as visible as the light of the sun, that every act originates from our own government, that the Nabob is a mere pageant without the shadow of authority, and even his most consequential agents receive their express nomination from the servants of the Company.”384 The opposing party, however, thought it would be still political, to uphold the pretext of “a country government,” for managing all discussions with foreign factories. And if ultimately it should, they say, “be necessary to maintain the authority of the country government by force, the Nabob will call upon us for that assistance, which we are bound by treaty to afford him, and which may be effectually employed in his name.” That party possessed the majority of votes, and their schemes, of course, were carried into execution.385
end of vol. iii.